Nursery School Teachers’ View of Parents who are Difficult to Deal with

Abstract

This study was designed to examine the nursery school teachers’ view on the characteristics of parents whom nursery schoolteachers found difficult to deal with and on those of their infants, and to evaluate the relationships between these characteristics. Four hundred fourteen nursery school teachers responded to the survey, all of whom had more than 5 years of childcare experience as well as experiences dealing with difficult parents. The result of the factor analysis identified three factors concerning the characteristics of difficult parents and their infants: “rejective attitude toward childcare,” “excessive demands toward nursery school,” and “explosion of uncontrolled anger” for parents; and “aggressive attitude,” “avoidance and low motivation,” and “filthy and abnormal appetite” for infants. The parents’ rejective attitude concerning child-rearing negatively affected their infants, leading to their aggressive attitudes, decreased motivation, avoidance of others, and abnormal appetite.